1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording control apparatus suitable for video and audio editing, such as editing data recorded on a storage medium so that new data is additional recorded on the data, and to a method for the recording control apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In professional video camera apparatuses and their peripheral products such as editing products (video-related products) for use in professional applications such as broadcasting, it is common to use tape-shaped recording media to handle video information obtained by capturing images. However, with the recent increase in the storage capacity of optical disk-shaped storage media sufficient for professional photography applications and advances of compression coding techniques, professional video-related products using optical disk-shaped storage media have been being developed. Such professional video products, therefore, also enjoy advantages of disk-shaped storage media, such as no degradation of the quality of recorded data and compactness of storage media.
In general, video information recorded on randomly accessible storage media such as optical disk-shaped recording media is edited by performing operations such as copying and storing video data to be edited onto a storage medium such as a hard disk drive (HDD) of a computer system, and operating editor application software to, for example, link desired segments (or scenes) picked up from the stored video information. This type of editing is referred to as non-linear editing. Non-linear editing is an editing method suitable for an environment where, as described above, video information is converted in a digital form and stored in randomly accessible storage media. Non-linear editing is more easy-to-use for general users and allows users to create an enjoyable editing experience. Further, the same final results as those obtained by linear editing can be obtained by non-linear editing. Therefore, consumer video editing products based on non-linear editing, such as application software, have been available.
In professional video applications, however, linear editing has been more common for a long time. The reason is as follows. First, tape-shaped recording media are mainstream storage media, which are suitable for linear editing. Second, short-term editing is demanded for limited work time before, for example, the start of a broadcast program. A linear editing operation is an intuitive and quick way to obtain an editing result for experts, and therefore is still useful in the video-related field.
In view of such a situation, editing tools based on linear editing have been widely used in professional video-related products.
Assemble editing is a typical linear editing method, and is an editing technique in which, basically, desired scenes of video information recorded on different tape-shaped recording media (video tape cassettes) are collectively recorded on a single tape cassette called a master tape. In assemble editing, for example, video is dubbed from a first tape cassette to a master tape by duplicating a desired scene and an extra portion after the end of the desired scene, and another video is dubbed from a second tape to the master tape by returning a dubbing position on the master tape to the end of the previous video scene and duplicating a subsequent video scene.